All We Need
by It's What I Do For A Living
Summary: Sort of AU in the respect that Cas never came back. Angsty oneshot. Also, I don't own Supernatural. Dean's in denial and everyone keeps asking if he's okay, and he just really doesn't understand why. Until he does. And then everything comes crashing down around him as he realizes-and finally comes to accept-the reason he's maybe a little bit not okay.


Sometimes Sam asks, in his own infuriatingly _Sam_ way, if Dean's okay. And why wouldn't he be okay? Just because Cas is gone, that doesn't mean that he's not okay. Dean can go on with his life, he can live it to the fullest-or, whatever the limit on a Winchesters life was, because it sure as hell wasn't the 'fullest'-he could do it.

He didn't have to be happy. He just had to be okay.

Or at least pretend like he was. So months later when Sam asks if Dean's okay, he snaps. "I'm fine-and-fucking-dandy, Sam, stop fucking asking!"

Dean wonders what makes everyone think that he's not okay, that he can't handle this. He's a Winchester, for Gods' sake. He has to be okay. There's not another option, he thinks tiredly. Maybe it's because he was so close to Cas. He didn't know. All he knew was that he missed his friend. But he couldn't let anyone else know that.

So what if sometimes Dean curled up in his motel bed when Sam had gone out, just thinking. Of course he adamantly refused that maybe a tear or two fell out once in awhile when he thought about his angel. Just like his angel fell. Just like he fell, except Dean fell metaphorically. He fell in love. His angel had fallen from grace, somehow managing to take Dean with him. Even now, he felt that same pull in his chest whenever he thought about Cas.

* * *

Maybe, just maybe, Dean starts to get why everyone asks about his wellbeing, when Sam catches him gently caressing an inky drawing in an age old book while sitting on the rough ground behind the Impala.

Dean had offered to do the research on the current monster while his brother rested after driving the longest leg of the journey to their newest hunt. He forgot that they had kept the books on angel lore after having to deal with so many of them, and after pulling the book from box in the trunk, he had closed the trunk and circled around to the front of the car to sit on it's hood. He found the dog eared page on his favourite angel-his angel.

Castiel.

He sometimes wondered why he shortened Castiel to a sad, three lettered word when Castiel was such a beautiful name. 'Castiel' spoke of power, of grace and beauty; 'Cas' spoke of loyalty and friendship and love.

Love. A twisted choked noise ripped it's way out of Deans throat. That word was something that he never really wanted to associate with Cas, fearing that the small, simple overused word could ruin everything. But now, that word and the idea of it lay crumbled and broken, just like the man who thought it-as he could never say it.

His eyes hadn't left the worn page. Hadn't left the face that some priest had probably inked their centuries, maybe even millennia ago. He didn't know or care. All he knew was that his angel was on that stupid page of that stupid book and not with him.

Rationally, Dean knew that wasn't true. It wasn't the book keeping Castiel from him. It was really his own stupidity, for so many reasons, that was the reason Cas wasn't with him now. It made him smile, a bittersweet resemblance to something that use to be so handsome. He gently stroked the page again.

He hadn't known that Sam was approaching until he heard him say, "Shit, Dean, what are you..." His words trailed off as he realized what his brother was looking at. Sam just sighed, pulling the book from his hands and tossing it into the motel room before Dean could process the action and complain. He threw the keys to his brother. "Let's go get some pie." It wasn't a suggestion, it was an order, and fuck if Dean wasn't good at taking orders.

"Yeah..."

* * *

It was months later, when Dean was finally beginning to think that he was okay, when he discovered that he wasn't. He wasn't okay.

If he was okay, he wouldn't be just...just staring, at this plastic bag that held Cas' bloody trench coat and shaking. He was shaking with the repressed feelings of almost a year, only letting maybe one one hundredth of those feelings out.

When everything clicked, when he realized what he was holding, who it belonged to, and that that person would probably never wear it again...

Dean heaved a breath, feeling his chest tighten. He gripped the offending item and on a whim, brought it to his nose. Just to see if the plastic bag encasing the coat had somehow kept some little piece of Cas that Dean could have, if only for a second.

It did.

His scent smelled like the Winchesters, like Deans favourite cologne and something woodsy. And something that smelled a little bit like heaven, but maybe that was just the smell of Cas. God, it hurt something inside of him. It was a physical pain. Dean leaned against the trunk of the Impala, his back to it. He begged it's support as he choked a breath into the surprisingly soft tattered coat. He squeezed the ball of fabric just that much tighter, surprised when his finger slipped in the pocket and he felt a solid object there. He pulled out a wadded up something. All of his breath left him when he uncrumbled it and held it within his view.

It was a picture of Dean.

Dean broke.

He fell to the ground, his knees hitting so hard in the clearing so hard that it rocketed through his body. He held the fabric to his face to hide the emotion there, but it didn't help; even his muffled sobbing was loud and he knew it. God, this wasn't fair, it wasn't fair...

Cas had fallen for him, in more ways than just the metaphorical way that Dean had to offer. Castiel was Deans angel, and only his.

Dean didn't know how long he'd been there, a ridiculous sobbing mess, because time became a foreign concept to him as he played and replayed the memories of Cas in his mind. The good ones and the bad ones, and fuck it hurt. It hurt so bad. He unconsciously curled in on himself, hugging his knees closer to him and smushing the fabric closer, impossibly closer. Just wanting to disappear to a place where Cas was and where everything, every memory wasn't so sharp and painful and a testament of the only one he'd been stupid enough to fall so in love with.

He didn't know when Cas had made himself such a part of him-so close but not close enough-to sew himself into the very fabric of Deans being. To the point where he'd when he'd find something, he'd wonder if Cas would like it, or if he came up with a good idea, he always searched for Cas' awe filled stare, like he couldn't believe that came from him. Which was a little insulting, but boy did Dean want that look in his eyes again, like he was learning new things about Dean that he couldn't get enough of. Where everything he did, he'd always wonder if Cas would approve or disapprove-the reason he didn't drink after Cas died. Died. He finally let himself think that word. That final word that hurt him, and Dean could at last put a finger on that fucking pain that brought him to his knees.

It was the pieces of Cas being ripped from him. Those little strings that held them together-held _him_ together, being violently ripped from the seams. That pull he felt in his chest that sometimes grew to be a pain that made even the young hunter with a high pain tolerance gasp. The pull that he felt-before that pull had turned into a terrible ripping feeling-when he learned that Castiel had fallen from grace, just for some young man destined for more than he believed himself capable. But Cas always believed in him. _Had_ always believed in him.

He'd looked at him with that curious stare-because it couldn't be described as anything else-like he couldn't figure Dean out, but he wanted to. He wanted to learn all that he had to offer. And if Dean had given himself a chance, if he'd had any of the faith in himself that Cas had, he'd have taught him. They could have learned from each other. If Dean hadn't been so stupid and scared, had maybe had a little bit of faith in himself, he'd have seen how in love with Dean Cas was.

Dean always use to pride himself in being intelligent, maybe not the brightest crayon in the box but smarter than your Average Joe. So how could he have not seen this, this man, who had loved him with all the strength of the Heaven from which he fell? He...He didn't know. God, he should have chased him. He should have proved that Cas was the only thing that mattered and that he didn't need anymore from him, instead he just kept asking and asking, and oh, God, look where that got him.

He didn't know when Sam approached, but he didn't even flinch when he sat down next to him on the ground and put an arm around his shoulder. He just buried his face further into Castiel's coat until he felt surrounded by his scent. It was comforting but the tears didn't stop.

The crumpled photograph in his hand fell to the ground and Dean could feel it like a physical loss, like one of the shredded strings that was holding them together blowing away in the wind. A broken sob was ripped from his throat as he tried to tell Sam, "That was in his pocket, Sammy. That was..." His sentence was interrupted by another sob. God. He hated that he was losing his shit in front of Sammy. He felt the hand on across his back pull away to pat his back and rub soothing circles, and if Dean was in any right state of mind he'd yell at his brother for treating him like such a girl. And damn if that wasn't funny, Sammy comforting Dean for once. He tried to push his brother away and protest, "I'm fucking _fine_, Sammy." Except the words sounded nothing like that at all. It sounded broken, hollow and just all around terrible, and Dean knew it.

He didn't hear what Sam was saying over his uncontrollable sobbing, or the roar of his thoughts, but he got the gist when Sam tried helping him up. He fell boneless against his brother, refusing to let the coat slip from it's place in his arms, even as he let it fall from his face. He let his brother manhandle him into a laying position in the back seat, then manhandle him some more to get the keys out of his pocket and then make his way to the drivers side of his baby. The purring of the engine and the feeling of the open road under him, the Impala eating away at the miles of distance between Bobbys' place and wherever they were, was surprisingly comforting.

Delirium also seemed to be setting in Sam thought, as Dean looked at Sam and said, "Wherever he is, I have his trench coat, so that means he has to come back to me, right?"

Deans last few thoughts before he went to sleep were of Castiel, and how it was all deans fault. It had been Deans stupidity, his refusal to show him how much Cas really meant to him. Because, he thinks, if he had, maybe Cas wouldn't have went all power crazy, if he'd have just shown him that Dean was all he needed. That Cas was all that Dean needed.

That was all Dean needed to be happy, not just okay. For a moment-and the first time in a long time-the name "Cas" became synonymous with the word "happiness" instead of "sad" or "empty". Before Dean knew it he was smiling gently, rubbing the fabric of the coat between his thumb and forefinger. He was comforted by the fact that there was a little piece of his angel with him. And with that last thought, he drifted into blissful unconsciousness.


End file.
